Jazz Vocal Techniques

An Instrumental Approach to Jazz Singing

JAZZ VOCAL

TECHNIQUES

An Instrumental Method

By Anne Farnsworth

JazzMedia Press

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Los Angeles, Ca 9 0 0 6 4

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to my fellow faculty members at the University of Southern California Jazz Studies Department for their positive support of this project, especially Dr. Thom Mason, founding chair, who was gracious enough to answer my email questions and read pages.

My voice teachers down the line - Janice McVeigh in Vocal Arts at USC Thornton School of Music, who not only improved my voice but helped me to improve the voices of my own students. At New England Conservatory, there was Bernard Barbeau on the classical side and Dominique Eade in Jazz Studies (So pretty! So talented! Alas, too nice to hate!) Prior to that, there were the countless ladies I went to in my search for whatever it was a vocalist did,

including the leathery former Big Band singer who blew smoke rings in my face as she coached my singing.

On piano, oh boy, what a list of luminaries - how come I’m not smarter? In reverse chronological order we have Hal Galper, Bill Cunliffe, John Clayton (‘he teaches piano?’, everyone asks. No, he teaches music), Terry Trotter (a

gentleman and a gentle man).

In Boston, there was George Garzone, tenor man and visionary, who

kicked my butt both at the Conservatory and on the stand. Thank you, George, if it wasn’t for you I might still be pulling shifts at the Cambridge Hyatt. Jerry Bergonzi, another great tenor player (‘after all, nobody’s human’). Jeff Covell, Mike Marra, who I met while wandering the halls of Berklee one late afternoon vowing to find myself a piano teacher, and stayed with for three years. My neighbor and friend, Bruce Katz, who gave me a few pointers not only in playing but in pedagogy, and the vocalists who hired me, especially Sharon Jones, (Brown Sugar to you New Englanders), and Dick Short, two wonderful singers who taught me how you put on a show, honey.

In Syracuse, in my other life as a classical pianist, there was Dr. Bishop, a wonderful lady who gave her all to her students. Before that there was Mr. Diameco, my teacher from seventh grade to twelfth, whom I also discovered with my hall wandering technique after we moved to another town. And my very first teacher, Mrs. Fuller, who, after giving me my seven A.M. lesson, would make me breakfast and drive me to school.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I

INTRODUCTION

1 - 8

What is a Jazz Singer; Gender Issue?; Jazz in the University;

Importance of Piano; Rhythm; Swing Feel; Improvisation;

Repertoire; Jazz Singing and Singers;

II

INTERVALS, SCALES, & CHORDS

9 - 2 3

Intervals; Scales; Enharmonics; Triads; Progressions;

Diatonic relationships; Modes; Ear training; Exercises;

III

WHERE ARE WE?

2 4 - 3 3

Form; Sections; Bridgeless Standards; Bossa Nova;

Rhythm Changes; Twelve Bar Blues; Four Bar Phrases;

Examples;

IV

DID YOU BRING YOUR CHARTS?

3 4 - 4 8

Sitting in; Your Book; Casuals; Fake Books; Transposing;

Chord Symbols; Key Signatures; Circle of Fifths; T i m e

Signatures; Signs and Terms;

V

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BLUES

4 9 - 5 8

Beginnings; American Folksong; Harmonic D e v e l o p m e n t ;

Modern Blues Form; Lowered Seventh; Substitution Chords;

Jazz Blues Form; Blues Variations; Minor Blues; Rock & Roll;

VI

IMPROVISATION ON THE BLUES

5 9 - 7 7

Common Tones; Solfege; Scat Syllables; Blues Exercises;

Modes and the Blues Form; Blue Notes; Blues Scale; Motives;

Passing & Approach notes; Building a Solo;

VII

HARMONY IN JAZZ STANDARDS

7 8 - 1 0 0

I-VI-II-V Progression; T urnarounds; II-V-I’ Progression;

Tonal Centers; Parent Scales; Soloing over II-V-I;

Analysis: Satin Doll; Lady Is A Tramp; Sub Chords i n

Turnarounds; Lady Is A Tramp Bridge; Arpeggios on Lady Is A

Tramp; Step Down Progression; Text-Focused Improv; S h o u t

Chorus; Exercises;

VIII INTROS, TAGS, AND CODAS

1 0 1 - 1 1 1

Intros; Rootless Voicings; Counting off a Tune; Tags;

Tritone Substitution; Bossa Nova Codas;

IX

ADVANCED IMPROV

1 1 2 - 1 3 5

Transcriptions; Vocalese; Upper Structure Chord Tones; B e b o p

Style; 7-3 And 9-5 Resolutions; Approach Notes; Bop S t y l e

Motives; Sideslipping; Sequences; Quotes; Using Modes;

Analysis: Bossa Nova harmony; Analysis: All The Things Y o u

Are;

X

ALTERED CHORDS AND SCALES

1 3 6 - 1 4 2

Altered Dominants; A l t e r e d Scales; Bebop Scales;

Minor II-V-I; Upper Structure Piano Voicings;

Altered Bop Motives; Phrasing;

XI

YOU ARE FEELING VERY RELAXED... 1 4 3 - 1 5 2

Relaxation Exercises; The Jaw and the Tongue;

Breathing; Open Your Mouth And Say Ah; Support;

Visualization; Singing Principles; Scatting Exercises;

XII

I NEED A GIG!

1 5 3 - 1 5 8

Where The Gigs Are; Who to Call; E q u i p m e n t ;

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

1 5 9 - 1 6 0

DISCOGRAPHY

1 6 1 - 1 6 2

I

WHAT IS A JAZZ SINGER?

What makes a singer a Jazz singer? Is it the repertoire she chooses? Does she scat? Is it her swinging beat? A good sense of time? A Jazz singer is

distinguished by all of these things. But the best are more accurately defined as Jazz musicians. Jazz musicians play Jazz - whether they do it with a trumpet, a tuba, a kazoo, or their voice. They speak a common musical language, learn the rules of theory and harmony, and, if they’re creative and far-sighted, break those rules to expand the Jazz universe for the rest of us.

Is a Jazz musician born or made? You may listen to Sarah or Ella grooving on one of their masterful scat solos and tell yourself, ‘No way could I ever do that’. You may not even be sure what ‘that’ is - you just like the sound or feel of their style of music. Maybe it’s the profound passion and intimate delivery of Billie or Bessie that moves you. You relate to their strong feelings but are not sure how to express them yourself.

Jazz musicians are born a n d made. Born in the sense that your cultural surroundings, aptitudes, and an attraction to music are characteristics that you land on the planet with. But that is only the beginning. The journey from there to becoming a master musician is made by you. If, when people ask you why you picked music as your vocation, you reply, ‘I didn’t pick music. Music picked me’, you are a musician. Because you will do whatever it takes to reach 1 .

your goals - artistic self-expression and the joy of sharing yourself and your gifts with other musicians and the world.

GENDER ISSUE

Whether in the academic arena or out in the trenches of the performing world, we are faced with the unfortunate fact that singers are often not treated with the same level of respect that instrumentalists accord each other. And since, at least so far, the majority of singers are female and the majority of instrumentalists are male, this could be construed as a gender issue. Once again, the patriarchy keeping women down? Not exactly.

Look at it this way: say a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, picks up an instrument. He then proceeds to spend the bulk of his teen years sitting in his bedroom learning how to play. Maybe in high school he starts a band with some other guys who have been sweating it out on their instruments as well. They realize that to compete in the marketplace, that is to nab the senior prom gig, they need a singer. There’s a pretty girl who likes to sing and can carry a tune so they take her on. She memorizes the lyrics and the melody to a few of her favorite songs, cops her favorite singer’s licks, and she’s on her way.

They start to rehearse and it’s not long before the guys realize that they are conversing in a musical language of which she is completely ignorant. So they talk around her, planning arrangements, choosing keys, and she become marginalized. Multiply that scenario by the thousands and you have the

formative experience that ingrains in the player’s mind a prejudice, a

prejudgment, that singers are not ‘real’ musicians. You guy singers out there may be given the benefit of the doubt because, well, let’s just call it a guy thing. But that benefit will only buy you about five minutes on the bandstand if you show yourself to be just another pretty voice.

Today, more and more girls are stepping out of the traditionally female circle of piano, flute, or violin, picking up saxophones, trumpets, and guitars. They’re playing in high school jazz bands and heading off to college to continue their musical studies. These young women are groundbreakers, tiny islands of femininity in a deep sea of maleness and when you ladies out there look

unprofessional or just not serious about what you are doing, it makes it harder for them.

So it is a gender issue to some extent, but one with an easily remedied solution. How? By learning to read music and developing an understanding of

basic theory and harmony. This allows you to step onto the bandstand as an equal partner, possessed of a musical training on a par with your colleagues.

JAZZ IN THE UNIVERSITY

The average vocalist enrolling in a university level Jazz Studies program enters woefully unprepared in comparison to his/her fellow students majoring in piano, saxophone, or guitar. One exception may be drummers, who, like singers, can reach a certain level of skill and participate in a group playing situation without having to read music.

Entering university as a music student without a basic working knowledge of reading and writing music is like going to college to study English literature and not being able to read and write English. How can you understand what the instructor is talking about? What they write on the blackboard? How can you do your homework?

Jazz in the academic world is a relative newcomer. Most Jazz Studies Departments exist under the umbrella of a classically oriented music school or department. This ancillary status means that the Jazz major is required to study the core Classical curriculum - history, harmony, oral skills, etc., in addition to her Jazz studies. You’ll find yourself sitting next to whiz kids who have been playing their instruments and reading music for most of their lives, and the classes will move at their speed, not yours. It’s in your best interest to be prepared before you plunk down that hefty tuition payment.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PIANO

Even if you have no plans to study Jazz in an academic setting, you’ll still need to learn your craft. A lot of people studied piano when they were young. If you were one of the ‘fortunate’ kids dragged kicking and screaming to piano lessons while your friends played ball, call your parents right now and thank them! You’ve got basic music reading skills. If you’ve never taken a piano lesson in your life, start now. Sign up for private lessons or take a beginning class at your local community college or music store. Recycle grandma’s old upright, rent a spinet, or buy a used electronic keyboard. Do whatever it takes to get your hands on some keys and start practicing!

You don’t need to be a great pianist. After all, your practice time is limited and your main interest is singing. You just need to be able to read melody lines in order to learn new tunes, maybe play some basic chords to accompany yourself. If your piano skills are already in place, so much the better. In a short while you could find yourself doing solo work, singing and accompanying yourself in a small club or restaurant. It’s a great way to gain experience in front of an audience while you work out arrangements and develop your own personal style. Think of it as paid practice.

Most serious musicians, whether in Jazz, Classical, or Pop, play piano in addition to their primary instrument. Sarah Vaughn and Aretha Franklin played so well that they often sat down at the piano in the course of a concert to

accompany themselves. Composers and arrangers write at the piano, music students use it for their harmony and ear training studies, singers use it to vocalize and learn new material. The piano is the musician’s desk; it’s where we do our work. Having the ability to practice, learn new songs or write your own charts gives you control over your musical growth. You’ll also save a lot of money by not having to hire rehearsal pianists or arrangers.

We’re going to discuss theory in this book. That’s how the instrumentalists learn improv and that’s how you can, too. Don’t be afraid - if you can add, you can figure it out. But it’s one thing to understand it on the page; it’s another to be able to hear it. That’s where the piano comes in. The keyboard can guide you while you develop your ear.

RHYTHM

There are two components that distinguish Jazz from other styles of music -rhythm and improvisation. Jazz -rhythms have the element of swing, a

syncopated pulse that puts accents on the second and fourth beats of the bar, known as upbeats, rather than on the more traditional first, the d o w n b e a t1, and third beats. This accent on ‘two and four’ shifts the rhythmic base, creating a sense of forward momentum that energizes the music.

4 .

1

Clap the accented beats while you sing the following

example. How does the 'feel' of the rhythm c h a n g e ?

Ex. 1.1

Sing as you clap on beats one and three

Row row row your boat Gently down the stream _________

Now clap on t w o and f o u r

Row row row your boat Gently down the stream____________

Don’t feel a difference? Try it at a faster tempo.

SWING FEEL

Put identical pieces of music in front of a jazz player and a classical player and they will play the notes of the melody with different rhythms. The classical musician will play the rhythms as written, a precise division of the beat, while the Jazz player will alter the quarter and eighth notes in a triplet/rest fashion. This rhythmic alteration is what we call swing feel, also known as jazz eighths. See next example.

Ex. 1.2

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

'Straight Eighths' - sung as written

'Jazz Eighths'

Hint: Say the word "choc-o-late" slowly and evenly three times in a row. This

is eighth note triplet rhythm. Now clap on the first and third syllables of "choc-o-late" in the pattern and you'll have this rhythmic figure.

REPERTOIRE

The repertoire of material played by most Jazz musicians traditionally has come from outside of the jazz world. Broadway show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, even pop and rock tunes have been appropriated to become what are called J a z z standards. But once in the hands of a Jazz musician they share one

commonality. They swing.

IMPROVISATION

Improvisation is the other key element that defines Jazz. In the early 20th century, when Jazz was born, no other style of music incorporated improv as an integral part of performance. In centuries past, European classical musicians

learned to improvise and were expected to use that skill in their performances. Remember the famous 'cutting contest' between the young Mozart and the older Salieri in the movie "Amadeus"?

Over time, that ability declined in performance in deference to the composer’s vision. Musician-composers like Bach and Mozart wrote out their improvisations under the rubric of Theme and Variations. The implicit

suggestion was that the performer play the composer’s ‘solo’, and refrain from making any additions of their own.

This ‘play it as written’ mentality continued into the nineteenth century when there was strong public opinion against ‘flashy’ soloists who veered off on their own flights of fancy. Thank goodness we have the outlet of Jazz with

which to express ourselves. A Jazz musician is an instantaneous composer, writing on the spot and expressing the mood of the moment.

JAZZ SINGING AND SINGERS

When Jazz was in its infancy, the distinct sounds created by horn players was due, in part, to the musicians’ attempts to replicate the phrasing and tones of the human voice, specifically the styles and sounds the early African

Americans brought from their native lands. Blues intonations, field hollers, the church-centered testifying and shout choruses, all were incorporated into what we now identify as a jazz sound.

As singers began to appear in the late ‘20s and 30s, they turned the concept of singing around by replicating the sounds of the jazz horns. Thus was born a more ‘instrumental’ style of singing. Even if they never used scat syllables, they enhanced the melody, embellishing it with new notes, throwing others away. The rhythm of the melodic line was also an area of

experimentation, delaying the start of a line and catching up later. This is called singing behind the beat, a technique that Billie Holiday developed to such an extent that every singer who follows her is in her debt when they play with the rhythm in their singing.

This melodic and rhythmic rephrasing of the original melody of a vocal song is called text-focused improvisation. Nat King Cole was a master of this subtle type of improvisation, as are more contemporary singers like Dianne Reeves and Diana Krall. Their smooth, swinging delivery adds excitement to the most mundane melodies and the creativity in their execution ensures that we never hear them sing the same way twice.

The storytelling, conversational aspects of the Blues add another

This connection comes out in ad-libbed asides such as ‘hear me tellin’ ya’, interjections that add a sharp rhythmic excitement akin to a drummer’s rim shot. Joe Williams spiked his fluid, sophisticated delivery with many such shouts and cries, and the audience responded in kind to this heightened emotionalism.

Scat singing, creating a melodic line spontaneously with syllables and sounds, is more closely linked to the instrumental solo. This is called abstract improvisation2

, the most challenging of vocal styles. Just as withinstrumentalists, when it’s good, it’s magic, but when it’s bad, well, better not to hear it at all!

Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are the undisputed leaders of this type of improv, forging a style that is the gold standard of scat. Betty Carter, with her driving, hard bop approach, transformed every piece of music that she cast her talents on, stretching standard intonation and opening our ears to new possibilities. Tania Maria melds her sharp, percussive piano playing with an equally percussive scatting style. Among the men, Al Jarreau’s early albums show him to be one of the modern masters of abstract improv, along with Bobby McFerrin with his unique gift of instrumental mimicry. Mark Murphy’s muscular approach is aggressively masculine yet at the same time supremely sensitive.

The compendium of great Jazz singers is too long to list here, spanning as it does the breadth of the twentieth century. The important thing is for you to get hold of their albums or CDs and wear them out! If you’re not already

familiar with these singers, ask for referrals from Jazz-loving friends or musicians. Use the discography in the appendix of this book as a guide.

Remember, Jazz is an aurally transmitted art form. What you see on the page isn’t what comes out of the singer’s mouth and you won’t be able to speak this special language with authority without hearing the accent of the natives. A conscientious and wide-ranging study of established masters is probably the most important element of the young jazz musician’s education. You’ll get the theory, you’ll learn the tunes, and you’ll conquer your stage fright. But first, you need to get the sounds in your ears.

8 .

2

The terms TEXT-FOCUSED IMPROV and ABSTRACT IMPROV were coined by Dr. Thom Mason of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music. Of late, he has dropped abstract improv, replacing it with THROUGH-COMPOSED, a label conceived by his colleague at USC,

II

INTERVALS, SCALES, & CHORDS

Let’s do a quick overview of intervals, the distance between two pitches. If this is all new to you, get a basic theory book and start studying. Ask your private instructor or a musician friend to sit down with you at a piano and answer any questions you might have. The concepts are not difficult but they are easier to visualize on the keyboard.

The unit of space from one key on the piano to the very next one, whether a black key or a white one, is called ahalf step a n d the interval is a minor second. Two adjacent keys comprise a whole step, a major second. The amount of half and/or whole steps between two pitches determines the size of the interval.

Intervals smaller than an octave are called simple intervals. Intervals larger than an octave are compound intervals. For example, the interval between C and its adjacent D is a major 2nd, but between C and D above the octave C is a 9th. You can make a rough estimation of the size of an interval by counting the keys between the two notes. From C to E, for example, a major third, you count C, D, E, three notes. But B to D is a minor third

(B-C -D); therefore it is important to be aware of the amount of half steps in an interval.

A good rule of thumb is that major and perfect intervals are those found in the major scale and minor intervals are the minor scale. This rule does not apply to diminished and augmented intervals. But it is easy to think of a ‘diminished’ interval as being shortened by a half step. Conversely, the ‘augmentation’ of an interval involves adding one half step.

Some of the intervals found within the C octave:

C to C Minor Second 1 half step C to D Major Second 2 half steps C to E Minor Third 3 half steps C to E Major Third 4 half steps C to F Perfect Fourth 5 half steps C to F Augmented Fourth 6 half steps C to G Perfect Fifth 7 half steps C to G Augmented Fifth 8 half steps C to A Major Sixth 9 half steps C to B Minor Sixth 10 half steps C to B Major Seventh 11 half steps C to C Perfect Octave 12 half steps

Ex. 2.1 SIMPLE INTERVALS m2 M2 m3 M3 P4 aug.4 dim.5 P5 m6 M6 m7 M7 P8 COMPOUND INTERVALS m9 M9 m10 M10 P11 aug.11 m13 M13

SCALES

The intervals above refer to pitches that are sounded together. Intervallic relationships between two consecutive pitches work on the same principle. Scales are pitches arranged in patterns of whole and half steps in an ascending or descending order. Starting with the tonic, also known as the root, seven pitches are played and the tonic is repeated one octave away. These pitches, called degrees of the scale, are numbered 1 (root) through 8 (the root one octave above). The fourth degree of a scale is known as the sub-dominant and the fifth is the key’s dominant.

Major and minor scales have fixed

patterns of whole and half s t e p s .

Ex. 2.2

C Major Scale

W W H W W W H

C Natural Minor Scale

W H W W H W W

Note that the patterns of whole and half steps are different in the

two scales. This difference is what gives each scale its special s o u n d .

MAJOR SCALES - WWHWWWH

MINOR SCALES - WHWWHWW

Play the examples on the piano. See if you can

find Major and minor scales in other keys, u s i n g

the same formula. If the pattern is played correctly,

they should sound the same - just higher or lower

depending on your starting p i t c h .

A scale composed of half steps only is called a chromatic scale

.

Ex. 2.3

C Chromatic Scale

Scales made completely of whole steps are called whole tone scales

.

Ex. 2.4

Whole Tone Scale

Other scales that Jazz musicians use are alterations of the Major and minor scales. We’ll look at some altered scales in Chapter X.

ENHARMONICS

Some of these intervals have two designations, because pitches can have two different names. These are called enharmonics - a term meaning same pitch, different name. For example, E flat and D sharp are the same note, as is F sharp and G flat. C to C sharp is a minor 2nd as is C to D flat. An augmented 4th (C -F sharp, e.g.) sounds the same interval as a diminished 5th (C - G flat).

Minor and diminished intervals are also known as flat, as in a flat(ted) 7th.

Which enharmonic we use depends on the key signature - flats with flats and sharps with sharps, although, in common practice, jazz charts allow for more flexibility in this area.

TRIADS

A chord’squality refers to it’s tonality - whether it is major or minor and what, if any, extra pitches are added to the basic triad. A triad is a three note chord, containing the root, 3rd, and 5th. The root is the most important pitch and the one the chord is named for. Next in importance is the third, for it is the pitch that determines whether the chord is major or minor.

So, when we talk about a triad being made up of the root, 3rd, and 5th degrees of a scale, can you see what those intervals are? Jazz chords nearly always add the 7th, as well asupper structure pitches (compound intervals) such as the 9th, 11th, and 13th. These pitches can also be flatted or sharped, further altering the chord’s quality. The pitches that make up a chord are called c h o r d tones. When they are used in an improvised line, they can also be called

consonant tones.

The player or composer’s choice of pitches and where they place them in relation to each other is how they ‘voice’ the chord, hence a chord played in a certain way is called a ‘ v o i c i n g ’. The term derives from early classical compositions written for four to six voices. Each melodic line moved independently in a vertical direction, the voices sounding simultaneously in a pleasing manner. If you took a horizontal sweep of all the voices in one spot, the notes would constitute a chord. That assemblage of pitches is the chord’s particular voicing.

You can also think of these chords as a series of major or minor thirds stacked on top of each other. A major triad is a minor third sitting on a major third; a minor triad is a minor third below a major third. Adding the 7th to the chord gives you a ‘third’ third above the triad, major or minor depending on whether the 7th is major or minor. A diminished chord is minor thirds stacked on top of each other.

Ex. 2.5

PROGRESSIONS

Jazz musicians often work with chord charts. Instead of the traditionally arranged piece of sheet music with a fully realized piano accompaniment, a chord chart contains only chord symbols laid out on a graph representing the measures, with or without the melody. The musician learns what kinds of

chords these symbols represent, as well as hip voicings to play. The chords in a jazz chart are referred to as the changes, as in ‘the chord changes to this and then it changes to that’. A series of changes is known as a chord progression.

Let’s look at a basic progression using the tonic (root), sub-dominant (4th degree), and dominant (5th degree). These changes are the foundation of all western music. Everything else is just an elaboration of this basic

p r o g r e s s i o n .

Play the c h ords on the piano. Memorize

the sound of the root m o v e m e n t .

Ex. 2.6

C : I IV V I

N.B.

We identify the intervals of a chord with Arabic n u m b e r s .

When we want to number the c h ords in a p r o g r e s s i o n ,

we use the same intervals but with Roman n u m e r a l s .

So the numbers work two ways:

1. Vertically (individual chord tones - Arabic numbers) 2. Horizontally (progression - Roman numerals).

Chords in root position, which are voiced with the root at the bottom, can be awkward to execute and make the progression sound disjointed, not flowing. That is the reason we play inversions, changing the placement of the basic

Here is the same progression in inversions.

Ex. 2.7

C:

I

IV

V

I

Play it and compare the sound w i t h

DIATONIC RELATIONSHIPS

If you take a scale and build chords on top of each pitch without adding any sharps or flats (accidentals) you are working within the key, or diatonically. Each chord will have a specific quality that remains the same no matter what key you are in. See Ex. 2.8.

Ex. 2.8

I ii iii IV V vi v i i

M7 m7 m7 M7 dom.7 m7 m7b5

N.B.

Minor chords are designated with an ‘i’ and a

lower case v, instead of I and V

Here is a description of each c h o r d :

NAME

DESCRIPTION

Major 7th - Major triad with a major 7th (I, IV) Minor 7th - Minor triad with a minor 7th (II, III, VI) Dominant 7th -Major triad with a minor 7th (V)

Minor 7 5 -Minor triad with a lowered 5th & 7th (VII)3 1 6 .

Minor keys have another harmonic progression in accordance with the scale’s different formula of half and whole steps. When working with minor harmony, the seventh degree of the scale is raised, creating what is known as the Harmonic Minor Scale. This raised seventh is the third pitch of the five chord, making the chord a V7, rather than a v7 (minor 7).

Here’s a example in C Harmonic M i n o r

(E , A , B

i

s the regular key s i g n a t u r e

₎

Ex. 2.9

i ii +III iv V VI vii m +7 m7-5 Aug7 m7 dom7 Maj7 dim.7

Tonic is the most important chord in a progression. It is the ‘home’ chord and sounding it gives the progression a sense of completion. Dominant is the second most important, for it leads to tonic and subdominant leads us to the dominant. All of the other chords in a progression are stepping stones to or from tonic to dominant to tonic.

In most styles of music, except for classical, any major triad with a minor seventh is referred to as a dominant seven because it only occurs naturally, or diatonically, on the fifth degree of the scale. These are also known as V7 chords (pronounced ‘five-seven chords’) for the same reason. They might not be the actual dominant of the key but are called dominant sevens nonetheless. Is your brain overheating? Hang on, we’re almost through.

MODES

You’ll need to be familiar with major and minor scales and their key signatures in order to use m o d e s, special kinds of scales. Often called church 1 7 .

modes, they were developed in the middle ages for chantsinging in the Catholic c h u r c h .

You can think of modes as alterations of the major and minor scales. They are used in jazz improvisation because they make a good match over different chords without the excessive use of accidentals.

Using the keyboard again as a guide, think of a scale played only on white keys from D - D. That is the Dorian mode and it works perfectly over a Dm7 chord which is also only white notes. The Mixolydian mode (G - G, e.g.) is comparable to a major scale with a lowered seventh, just like a Dominant 7th chord which is a major triad with a lowered seventh. This is far easier than learning each mode’s distinct pattern of whole and half steps.

See Example 2.10. Ex. 2.10

You’ll find the seven modes and their names on page 23. My advice is to become acquainted with the modes and their names and then set them aside for now. There are easier ways to think modally and we’ll talk about that in Chapter V.

EAR TRAINING

Part of a musician’s education is ear training. Although important for any style of music, it is critical for a Jazz musician to be able to identify intervals and chord qualities by ear since we do most of our playing ‘off the page’. ‘Playing by ear’ has a pejorative connotation to non-musicians, implying as it does that no real work is involved, the musician was just lucky enough to be born with the ability to play anything that they hear. Nothing could be farther from the truth, for ear training can be as much if not more difficult than music-reading skills and technical mastery of an instrument.

But this in an area where you, as a singer, can shine. As a matter of fact, it’s an area where you n e e d to shine, for you don’t have the security of being able to look at your instrument and pick out by sight the pitches that you have learned to use over a particular chord. If you’re serious enough about singing to have purchased this book, you probably already possess the necessary tools -a ple-asing voice with good inton-ation -and the -ability to replic-ate pitches th-at you hear. Non-singing musicians study ear training diligently but their voices, unlike yours, may not be as reliable, may not respond as readily to what the musician asks it to do.

Sit down at your piano and learn the intervals by playing and singing them until you have each one’s particular sound memorized. Many students use a ‘cheat sheet’ of well-known songs to help them get started. For example, the first two notes of ‘Here Comes The Bride’ constitute a perfect fourth. The signature tones of the NBC callsign are a major sixth going down a major third.

You can have fun with this, finding little melodic bits of songs that you recognize as you study intervals. It won’t be long before the interval sounds like what it is, and not just the first two notes of Love Story (minor sixth). Make yourself a tape with a series of intervals and listen to it away from the piano, in your car, at the beach, wherever you can. Intervals are the basic building blocks of chords and progressions and you need to make them your best friends.

Complete the following exercises.

Check your work on the piano.

A.

Build diatonic seventh chords over these scales.

Label them with Roman numerals below and chord

names above. Remember to use the accidentals

found in the k ey .

B. Build

chords

based

on

the

Harmonic

Minor

scale.

NB: The raised seventh allows for a Dominant fifth

chord r ather than a minor fifth c h o r d .

C.

Fill in the seventh chords in each progression, using the

Roman numerals as a guide. Write the names of the c h o r d s

(C Maj7, F7, etc.) under each one. When you have finished,

play them on the piano to hear how t hey sound.

THE SEVEN MODES

1. Ionian - Identical to the major scale

2. Dorian - Natural minor with a raised 6th ( 3, 7)

3. Phrygian - Natural minor plus flatted 2nd ( 2, 6, 7)

4. Lydian - Major scale with raised 4th ( 4)

5. Mixolydian - Major scale with a flatted 7th ( 7)

6. Aeolian - Identical to the natural minor scale ( 3, 6, 7)

7. Locrian - An altered minor scale ( 2, 3, 5, 6, 7)

III

WHERE ARE WE?

Question: How do you know when a singer is knocking at your door?

Answer: Because she can’t find her key and she doesn’t know when to come in.

Ouch. That old musicians’ joke hurts - mainly because it is so often true. An improvised solo is created out of the scales and chord tones available within the harmonic framework of a song. This framework is known as the song’s form. Form is an integral part of the language of Jazz that you must learn before you join in the musical dialogue. There is an exception, called Free Jazz, but that style of playing is only done well by master musicians who have learned the rules thoroughly enough to toss them away and paint their musical pictures outside of the lines. We’ll look at improvisation in Chapter VI. First, let’s talk a b o u t f o r m .

FORM

The length of the improvised solo can be short or long but it is governed 2 4 .

by the form of the piece, that is the progression of chords that the composer has chosen to make up his composition. One time through a song from

beginning to end (excluding any intros and/or codas which are played just once) is called a chorus. The first chorus is played with the lead instrument(s) or the vocalist stating the melody, with or without the lyrics. This is called the head. Singing or playing the melody as written is called stating the head.

Subsequent choruses minus the main melody are then repeated while the soloists take turns playing their improvisations. Then we have a final chorus, often referred to as the out chorus, where the melody is restated. Usually a coda (special ending) is added to the out chorus and the tune is finished. Think of the head or main melody choruses as bookends enclosing the solos of the participating players.

You do not start or end your solo at any spot that you choose! There are few things more jarring than a perky (and clueless) vocalist jumping in and abruptly cutting short an instrumentalist just as he or she is building up a head of steam. Inadvertent as it may be, it’s as rude as interrupting someone in the middle of a sentence. Unless something different is planned, either with a written or orally agreed upon arrangement, solos begin at the ‘t o p’, or beginning of the chorus. Their ending can be either at the bottom of the

chorus or, as is common practice when the song features a vocalist, just before t h e bridge. This is a standard protocol that allows the next soloist to prepare for his or her entrance or for the head to be replayed and the tune ended.

SECTIONS

Okay, where’s this bridge and how much is the toll? Most Jazz standards are written in a format called AABA or ‘song form’. This is a 32 bar (measure) chorus broken up into four eight-bar sections. Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll and Take the A Train are two classic examples. The first group of eight bars (A) contains a melody and progression identical to the second one. The lyrics are different but because of the melodic and harmonic repetition, this second section is also designated as A, often referred to as the ‘second A’. The third section of eight bars is different both melodically and harmonically, hence the label B, or B section. This section is also referred to as the release, or less

commonly, the refrain or chorus.

Why chorus? Isn’t that the whole piece one time through? It is now, but when many of these tunes were written in the ‘20’s and ‘30’s, especially

Broadway show tunes, there was another section that preceded the chorus. Over the years this section, the original verse of the song, was dropped and over time, forgotten. Now what was once the chorus of the longer song is considered the entire piece.

Why these verses are not more popular today is a mystery, for many of them have beautiful melodies and poignant, well-crafted lyrics. One reason could be the fact that verses were often played tempo rubato, that is, at no set tempo, or just more slowly than the chorus, and didn’t set the right mood when a bandleader wanted something ‘lively’ to wake up the crowd. Also, in the case of Broadway tunes, the lyrics of the opening verses tend to be very specific to the plot of the show while the chorus relates a story or mood that is more general in nature.

It’s not hard to dig up these lost verses in older anthologies or single-song sheet music and well worth the trouble. Including one or two of these fully restored songs into an evening’s performance adds a refreshing diversity to your program, and following an unfamiliar verse with a well-known chorus never fails to delight the audience.

BRIDGELESS STANDARDS

Some compositions fit the definition of a bridgeless standard in that they have, you guessed it, no bridge. Their form can be defined as being AA or AB, for example and they are often composed of two sixteen bar halves. Some well-known bridgeless standards are My Romance, Just Friends, The Days of Wine and Roses, and Autumn Leaves.

BOSSA NOVA

Bossa Nova is a Brazilian style of music that became popular in the United States in the 1960’s. Frank Sinatra recorded many Bossa Nova songs in concert with one of the style’s main composers, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Sometime later, the saxophonist Stan Getz recorded an album, Getz a Go Go, with a Brazilian singer named Astrid Gilberto; this album cemented Bossa Nova’s popularity with the Jazz audience and Bossa Nova was immediately enfolded into the r e p e r t o i r e .

Bossa Nova songs generally follow the standard AABA format, but often with harmonic distinctions such as chromatic and step-wise modulation (more about that later). The main characteristic of Bossa Nova is the rhythm,

specifically the bassline. The term Bossa Nova means ‘new bass’ in Portuguese and it was truly a brand new thing to American ears.

In Chapter I, we talked about jazz eighths, the swing feel that

distinguishes Jazz from other styles of music. Bossa Nova is one of the few sub-genres of Jazz, Jazz-Rock Fusion being another, that incorporate straight eighth r h y t h m s5 _.

You can count out the triplet feel of a swinging eighth note beat like this: 1 (e) a, 2 (e) a, 3 (e) a, 4 (e) a (“one (ee) ah, two (ee) ah” etc)6 _.

The basic quarter note in straight eighths is divided into four segments, sixteenth notes counted like this:

1 e & a - 2 e & a - 3 e & a - 4 e & a. (“one ee and ah...”)

The Bossa Nova bassline centers on beats one and three, but the second ‘hit’ is anticipated, that is played on the second half of beat two, with another hit on beat four. The pitches played are the root and fifth.

Ex. 3.1

C Maj7

You are probably familiar with many Bossa Nova songs, such as The Girl From Ipanema, Meditation, and How Insensitive.

Unfortunately, these wonderful songs have gotten a bad rap from overuse by lounge performers and their smooth style seems to have ingratiated

themselves with the programmers of elevator music. But there are many more less overdone Bossas, Trieste, Gentle Rain, No More Blues, to name a few. Pick

2 7 .

5

Dixieland Jazz, the first jazz style, also uses a straight eight as did some uptempo big band arrangements, such as ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’, by the Andrews Sisters.

up the Stan Getz album or one of the many recorded by Jobim and you will fall in love with the style.

RHYTHM CHANGES

Rhythm Changes refers to a group of Jazz compositions that use the changes (chords) originally found in the old standard, I’ve Got R h y t h m. Some pieces written on rhythm changes are Oleo, a Sonny Rollins composition, and Charlie Parker’s A n t h r o p o l o g y . The Flintstones Theme Song is also loosely based on rhythm changes.

The form is AABA, but sometimes there is no melody written for the B section (O l e o is an example). That means that when playing the head of a rhythm changes song, the soloist improvises on B and goes back to the melody for the last A section.

Rhythm changes tunes are popular sit-in selections for the same reason as Twelve Bar Blues; the form or progression is the same, the only variable being the key. Someone may call ‘rhythm changes in B flat’, for example, and start playing any number of heads.

TWELVE BAR BLUES

The prevailing Blues form used by Jazz musicians is the Twelve Bar Blues. Just as the name implies, a chorus is twelve bars long, significantly shorter than the AABA form. There are eight bar and sixteen bar Blues formats as well,

though less common in the Jazz repertoire. A Blues piece also has a

distinguishing harmonic progression that is more structured than in the AABA form. We’ll discuss the specifics of Blues harmony in Chapters V and VI.

When considering the poetic form of the lyric, Twelve Bar Blues can be described as AAB. The first line, extending over four bars, is repeated in the second four bar section. The final four bars have a different line which rhymes with the first two lines.

Unlike the AABA Form, which usually contains only one set of lyrics, a Blues song can have a number of verses exploring a certain situation or state of mind. Song Form, which sprang from Tin Pan Alley in the early part of the twentieth century, is a relative youngster when compared to its cousin, the Blues. Because of this long history, most Blues songs are associated with a

certain singer or group, the original composer having long faded into the misty realms of the past.

This makes the Blues a more fluid form compositionally speaking, with singers playing with and adding to the lyrics, passing these nuances down to t h e next generation.

So, the bulk of the Jazz vocal repertoire draws from these forms: AABA, the Blues, and Rhythm Changes. But there are exceptions. S u m m e r t i m e , a

popular standard from George Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess, has a discrete form that is not quite AABA and not quite Twelve Bar Blues, though it bears similarities to both.

The harmonic format of Here’s That Rainy Day, written by Jim Van Heusen, is ABAC. Johnny Mercer’s Autumn Leaves is AABC.

FOUR BAR PHRASES

All of these examples share a four bar foundation in their composition. Just as in Western classical music, the four bar grouping is a basic phrasing unit, a rhythmic and harmonic building block of the form. As your saxophone player heads into his thirteenth chorus you may find yourself beaming

beatifically while your foot is tapping like a jackhammer and your brain is frying as you frantically count bars. That’s okay, for with practice you will soon be able to ‘feel’ four and eight bar phrases, even whole choruses. This author once played behind a singer who actually dozed off during an instrumental solo, only to have his subconscious timekeeper jerk him awake at the top of the t u n e !

One last joke:

Just before they were to begin their nightly gig, the pianist says to the vocalist: "OK, this is how we're going to do the first tune. We play the first 8 bars as usual, but add a beat on the last measure of the1st ending. On the repeat, go back to 4/4, but modulate up a minor 2nd. Skip the last bar of the second ending and go straight to the bridge in 3/4 and modulate up a minor 3rd. Modulate back down a major 2nd on the second bar and I'll take a solo. On the 5th bar of the bridge you come back with the lyrics, skip the last '8' and go directly to the coda, but only the first 3 bars. Then go back to the first 8 bars and end in the 7th bar with you singing the flat 9th on the MAJ 7th chord. But don't worry, I'll quickly change chords so you'll be singing a nice sounding note. Then end it!"

The vocalist, confused, gapes at the pianist and mumbles, "That sounds complicated, I don't think I can remember all that!"

"Why not?" he replies, "that's how you did it last night!" 2 9 .

STUDY THE FORMS OF THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES

Prom Night Barbie

AABA

'Song Form'

Count out the eight measure sections. Don't forget to factor in the 1st and 2nd endings. Notice the 2nd set of lyrics in A2. Do you notice any chordal or rhythmic patterns in the 4 bar groupings?

12 Bar Blues

STORMY MONDAY

Study the three 4-bar sections.

What do you notice about the melody? What is the rhyming pattern of the lyrics?

Hurry Up and Love Me

Copyright 1996 - JazzMedia Music All Rights Reserved

IV

DID YOU BRING YOUR CHARTS?

Vocalists, lacking an instrumental range, often transpose the key of a song from the one it was written in, known as its standard key. Even if the range of a song rests comfortably within our reach, we may want a certain feel or tone in our presentation. This is comparable to a saxophonist picking up a tenor sax for one song and switching to soprano for another.

Singing at the top of your range can sound youthful or naive, qualities that may work for a particular dramatic situation but do not always convey the image you want to create for yourself. Female vocalists, in particular, tend to sing in a lower voice these days compared to singers in the 1940s and ‘50s. On the other hand, a song placed too low in your register can sound muddy and restrict projection.

So we change the key, a perfectly legitimate thing to do. The problem occurs when we expect our accompanists to do the changing for us, sometimes right there on the bandstand with a restless audience waiting to hear some music. Most Jazz musicians are comfortable transposing standards into other keys and will do it graciously. But not all musicians have this level of expertise at their disposal and so, when forced to do so may feel put upon, even angry that their ‘shortcoming’ has been revealed.

Let’s look at it another way: you’ve been called up to the stage by a friend in the band to sit in, that is to sing something impromptu and unrehearsed. You give the band your selection and the pianist asks you for a key. So far, so good. You mumble something about not being sure. The pianist, nice guy that he is, runs the first couple of bars of the tune in a few different keys so you can judge which one is best for your voice. You settle on one and, crisis averted, you turn to face the audience and start the tune.

What do you think is going on in the minds of the musicians behind you as they play? Maybe the pianist is thinking, ‘boy, I had to memorize the melody, the chords, the form, and be able to play it in several different keys. All she had to do was learn the melody, the lyrics, and a letter in the alphabet from A to G so she could give us a key’. You have given them an estimation of your abilities and commitment before you even opened your mouth to sing a note.

‘But I sing well’, you may counter, ‘people like to listen to me’. That’s great and the musicians may truly enjoy listening to you sing. But all that means, in their minds, is you are someone with a nice voice who knows a few songs. You are not a dedicated musician who deserves respect and honor for all the hard work you have put into your craft. If you are young, they’ll cut you some slack, if you’re pretty or handsome, ditto, but don’t expect to be treated as an equal. You won’t be called for future gigs because you don’t have a repertoire, charts, and experience.

Believe it or not, these are some of the things said by singers to

instrumentalists as they step up to the stage, and the instrumentalists’ (silent) replies:

“What key do I sing in?”

(You’re asking me? I’ve never seen you before in my life!) “I sing in C.”

(Every song in the world? You sing them all in C?) “Here’s my key - [sings] la, la, la, la....”

(Oh, brother...)

Sound silly, don’t they? Silly or not, they’ve been said countless times to countless instrumentalists over the years. It may be unfair but you can see why you have to work hard to counter the prejudgments of instrumentalists toward y o u .

SITTING IN

The bandstand is not some happy, flower-strewn land where everybody loves each other all the time. But it can be, and when it is, it’s the most

wonderful place to be on earth. Quite often though, especially at ‘jam sessions’ and sit-in situations, it’s a battlefield. Among instrumentalists, complicated tunes are called at breakneck tempos to test the mettle of the ‘new guy’ brave enough to step into the fray. As a singer, you have a bit more control, for you would generally be choosing the song and the tempo at which it would be performed. But the same attitude of checking out your wares, so to speak, prevails. Believe me, you want to be well armed and well prepared.

So, what do I do, you ask, quit before I even get started? Not at all! You’re learning more about music every day and you don’t have to wait until you’ve gotten everything together before you sing with a band. There are a few techniques you can use to make your debut with your friendly neighborhood combo smooth and hassle free.

Think of the golden rule, or a variation of it: don’t ask anyone to do what you can’t do yourself, or could but just haven’t taken the time. In other words, don’t make them do your job (unless you’re paying them to help you). If you’ve figured out a good key for a song at home by plunking out the changes or the roots on your piano, you’ve done some preparation. Now you can give them the right key with confidence.

If it is a key that is used often, there shouldn’t be a problem. For

example, Misty has a standard key of E . You need to lower it a little. Do you pick D ? Why, when C is so much more familiar to most musicians? Blues in G ? F is only a half step away and a more traditional key for Blues than G .

Now the musicians know that you know enough to choose commonly used keys. I don’t like to get into terms like ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ keys, let’s just say more familiar or less commonly used. After all, you’re asking the players to step outside of their comfort zone by changing the key in the first place. Why not make it as easy for them as possible? Nobody wants to look bad on the

bandstand and anything you can do to make them sound better makes you sound better, too.

Sitting in with a band at a club or restaurant is the best way to get yourself known in your area. You may find a few ads in music-oriented newspapers but you’re going to have to audition for those jobs as well. And getting acquainted with working professionals, people who already have gigs, is a better bet than throwing your lot in with a guy just getting himself together and advertising for players. The working band may have a wedding gig next

week and need a singer. Wouldn’t you like to fill the bill?

There are a number of things you can do to make sitting in a positive experience. If you don’t have charts yet, and truthfully, no one expects you to carry music around with you when you’re out for the evening, you can have a few songs prepared that don’t require charts. As mentioned earlier, some of those songs could be well-known standards that you can sing in standard key or can be transposed into an equally familiar key. Just by acknowledging that you are asking for something that not all musicians are capable of doing, rather than simply expecting it, gives the accompanists their due for the hours they’ve spent honing that special skill.

Do some investigating to find those songs that you can sing comfortably in the standard or ‘book’ key. Here is where the guys have it a little easier, more standards seem to fit their range than they do for the ladies. But there are some out there.

Another great option is having a few Blues heads in your repertoire.

Asking for a twelve bar Blues in F or C or B , to name a few common Blues keys, is perfectly acceptable. Musicians do it all the time. You just need to know the melody and the verses, count out a tempo, and you’re on your way.

YOUR BOOK

So you’re getting experience in the evenings interacting with a band and performing in front of an audience. What are you doing with your free time during the day? Writing your charts and building your book.

A singer’s book is a collection of charts written out in her key. They can be elaborately arranged or just basic chord charts, the melody with chord symbols, also known as lead sheets. Simple or complex, your book shows that you’ve done your homework and are committed to making the experience as effortless and enjoyable as possible for all concerned.

Unless you are part of a start-up band, you probably won’t get a lot, if any, time to rehearse for an upcoming gig unless you want to pay the

bandmembers for their time. Local jazz gigs, called club dates, are usually done ‘off the cuff’, that is either by playing standards that everyone knows or

working from charts for vocal pieces or original instrumental compositions. The nature of a Jazz musician’s study, learning the standard repertoire, chord symbols, voicings, developing the ability to sightread and transpose, enables him or her to be performance ready with little or no rehearsal.

playing will begin to gel and arrangements will develop over time. This is why your book is so important. The more charts you have, the more versatile you can be in planning your sets.

But even if you are calling the same guys for your gigs and really getting comfortable with them, you must be prepared for the unavailability of a certain player or last minute substitutions. Unlike many up and coming rock or pop groups who play together exclusively and sometimes even share living quarters, jazz musicians do not generally throw their lot in with one band; there’s just not enough work in the jazz arena to sustain them. A good player is going to be in demand and you will find yourself calling your favorite sidemen first, but often working down your list to fill out the date. Having your music charted out is essential.

CASUALS

Another good reason to have your book together is the always available bread and butter work playing weddings, private parties, and other one-time special events. Called casualson the West Coast, general business (or more

commonly, “GeeBee”) in Boston and New York, outside gigs in Philadelphia, they are commonly booked by special music agents called contractors, who put

players together for a performance. A contractor can range from a musician who hustles casual work for his or her own band to a corporate entity booking hundreds of musicians over the course of a busy weekend.

Getting yourself on the roster of some or all of the contractors in your area is a great source of steady income as well as a venue for gaining invaluable experience working in impromptu situations in front of a live audience. You’ll meet new musicians at each date and learn to follow various bandleaders’ cues. Although playing casuals is not a stated career goal for any ‘serious’ musician, even the most mundane wedding gig can garner you a couple of hundred bucks and dinner for a few hours work. If you live in or near a large city, you may find yourself playing art gallery openings, movie premiere parties, and other high profile gatherings full of interesting people and possible professional contacts. Many casual musicians can earn a week’s income over the course of a weekend, leaving them plenty of free time with which to pursue their loftier musical goals.

When presenting yourself as a prospective employee to a contractor, the first thing they will ask is how versatile you are, for casual work can range from jazz standards to pop and rock tunes in the course of a single performance. The

second thing they will ask to see is a songlist and your book.

FAKE BOOKS

You’ll need some reference material to find copies of the tunes you would like to perform. Fake books are compendiums of jazz compositions written out with the melody and the chord changes. You’ll want to get a vocal fake book so you can get the lyrics as well. Although not perfect, some of the changes are wrong, the Real Vocal Book (fake book - real book, get it?) is the first one you should start with. You can purchase it at most music stores that sell sheet

music. Another good one is the New Real Book (Sher Music). Of course, the best way to get charts is to do a transcription from records. We’ll talk about

transcribing in Chapter IX. Once you have selected a song, you’ll need to transpose it into your key.

TRANSPOSING

H ow do you transpose keys? It’s easy. In Chapter II, we looked at intervals and how they relate to chord progressions (the horizontal relationship of the harmony). Transposing is taking the music that you want to chart out, figuring out the intervallic relationships of the harmony and just moving those

relationships to a new key. You can do it by figuring out the Roman numerals of the original progression (i.e. II - V - I) or just make the transition from letter to letter using your piano to help you.

R e m ember, Jazz musicians only need chord charts to make music, that is the melody with chord symbols. You won’t need to write out basslines for the bassist to play or chord voicings for the pianist. Though you may find the process slow going at first, it will become easier with practice.

Here’s an example:

Ex. 4.1

C Ma7 Dm7 Em7 A7 Dm7 G7 C Ma7

I ii iii VI7 ii V I

Fill in the chords of the progression in the new key of F Major

I ii iii VI7 ii V I

If you don’t want to use Roman N u m e r als you can t r a n s p o s e

the chords directly. The next example is the first eight bars o f

Autumn Leaves in E minor. Try taking them down a whole s t e p

to D minor. Be sure to check your work on the p i a n o

Write in the chords in the new key.

Autumn Leaves

Do you want to transpose the melody as well? Move t h e

notes down a major second just as you did with the chords.

CHORD SYMBOLS

The symbols we use to designate the different types of chords do not have a precise methodology at this time. Jazz theory and the conventions that apply to this young style of music are still in a state of growth and flux. You’ll need to become familiar with several different ways of writing a particular chord’s symbol. In your own charts, it is recommended that you use one type of chord designation to maintain consistency.

Here are some commonly used chord symbols:

Major 7

: C, CM7, C Maj7, C

,C6

Dom. 7

: C7, C dom7, C9, C11, C 1 3

Minor 7

: Cm7, C min, C-7

Minor 7 5 : Cm7-5, C - 7 5, C

Dim. 7

: C dim7, C

7

Note the two chords, C6 and C13. One asks you to add the sixth to the chord and the other asks for the thirteenth. If you’ve been studying your

intervals you know that the sixth and thirteen degrees of the scale in C are both A - an octave apart from each other. So, why the difference?

If you see a C6, it is telling you to add an A to a Major seventh chord. If the chord is named C13, you add the A to a Dominant seventh chord. Like figured bass, it is a situation where more information is being conveyed than meets the eye. Another example is C2 and C9, both asking for a D to be added. C2 is often a pop tune chord symbol used with an arpeggiated no-frills triad or block chord(a triad with the root doubled on the top). A general rule would be the higher numbers added to the chord indicate a flatted seventh (9, 11, 13) while the lower numbers ask for a major seven or a triad (2, 4, 6).

The designation ‘Diminished 7’ is clouded in confusion, for there are conflicting theories on exactly what it signifies. A true diminished chord is composed of stacked minor thirds, resulting in Root, 3, 5, 7. The ‘ ’ is called ‘double flat’ and refers to a pitch being lowered two half steps instead of one. Therefore, a C diminished 7th chord would spell as C, E , G , and B , B double flat being the enharmonic of A. This is a true or fully diminished chord. Another school of thought asserts that since C dim. is a fully diminished triad,

adding the 7 instructs the player to sound a regular 7. This is also known as a ‘half diminished', as in only half of the chord is diminished, signified by a circle with a line through it. Other strict fundamentalists (the musical kind, not the religious kind) insist that a Cm7 5, which describes exactly what the chord is, is not a real chord, whatever that means. So beware, be clear, and be consistent in your choice of symbols.

Another troublesome area is the use of the delta after a letter to designate a Major 7th chord. It is common practice but not recommended. If written by hand, it can look like a 7 or a circle, which of course will change the chord. This is also true with the use of a minus sign to write a Minor 7th chord. You can use the common large ‘M’ or small ‘m’ to show Major or Minor but, again, your manuscript must be very legible or problems can occur. The abbreviations Maj., Min., and Dim. are your best bet.

Keep in mind that many times you will be throwing a chart in front of your accompanists with little or no practice. It is in your best interest to have the symbols clearly written and unambiguous. Sightreading is challenging

enough without having to figure out what you want played and not all potential disasters (also known as ‘train wrecks’) can be anticipated. This author once wrote out her charts in festive red ink only to have them disappear into a blank white page under the red stagelights at that evening’s performance!

As you become more experienced at writing your charts you may want to purchase a computer music writing program. The charts in this book were written with the O v e r t u r e program but there are several on the market. Once you become familiar with the application, it is fast, convenient, and as clean and easy to read as commercially printed music. And transposition into other keys is readily accomplished with just a few clicks of the mouse.

KEY SIGNATURES

If you are writing a simple chord chart without the melody you don’t need to use a key signature. But as you become more adept at this practice, you will want to use the melody and its corresponding key signature.

There are twelve key signatures for the twelve Major and Minor keys. Each Major key has a corresponding Minor key which share the same key signature. They’re ‘relatives’, harmonically speaking, and that’s just what we call them. G Major, which has an F in its key signature is the relative major of E Minor. A Minor, with no sharps or flats, is the relative minor of C Major.

For organizational purposes, the twelve keys are classified into a circle of fifths. Looking at the keyboard again, start at C (no sharps or flats). Move up a perfect fifth to G with one sharp (F) in its key signature. A fifth up from G is D which has two sharps (F,C) in its key signature. As you continue around the circle you will keep adding a sharp to each key signature until you get to F (6 sharps) where you can switch to its enharmonic, G , which has six flats.

Continuing on in the flat keys, you now remove one flat with each key until you are back to C. The Minor keys also can be grouped in this fashion, starting with A Minor and moving around the circle.

Ex. 4.4

CIRCLE OF FIFTHS

C Maj

(no sharps or flats) A Min F Maj G Maj (B ) (F ) D Min E Min B Maj D Maj (B , E ) (F , C ) G Min B Min E Maj A Maj (B , E , A ) (F , C , G ) C Min F Min A Maj E Maj (B , E , A , D ) (F , C , G , D ) F Min C Min D Maj B Maj (B , E , A , D , G ) F Maj (F , C , G , D , A ) B Min (F , C , G , D , A , E ) G Min D Min

(enharmonic) G Maj/E Min (B , E , A , D , G , C )

N.B. The keys of G

and D are more commonly used i n

Jazz compositions than their enharmonics, F

and C .

One interesting thing to note, as you move up from C Major the 7th degree of the scale is raised, adding a sharp to each successive key. As we round the bend into the flat keys, the 7th degree is again raised, naturalizing one flat each time as we work our way back to C Major.

The sharps and flats are organized on the staff in a diagonal pattern in the order that they appear in the circle of fifths sequence. In other words,

writing a key signature in A Major (3 sharps), you first put the F , then the C , followed by the G . With the flats you can work backwards, which is a circle of fourths, starting from the key of F Major - B , then E , then A , and so forth.

Ex. 4.5

When discussing keys with other musicians, it is perfectly acceptable to refer to them by the number of sharps or flats that they contain rather than their name. Designating D Major as ‘two sharps’ or G minor as ‘two flats’ is economical and efficient, most musicians know whether a particular standard is written in a major or minor key. In some cases, it can be preferable, for it saves